Thoughts from the National Sports Forum
02/09/2010 04:00 Filed in: Thoughts
on Internet Marketing
What’s the current state of the sports industry? What
are corporate sponsors saying and doing this year?
What are sports organizations doing to market
themselves as the economy slowly recovers?
To understand these trends, I was fortunate to attend the National Sports Forum, which held its 15th annual gathering in Baltimore last week. Hundreds of sports industry colleagues gathered to discuss these topics and gain insights for the coming year.
Naturally, I tried to absorb all of it in the context of Internet marketing. From my perspective, the quick take-away lessons were:
1. Sponsors and advertisers demand real business results from any marketing program. Actual, measureable results - sales, for example - are the new signs of success in marketing.
2. Social media is the hottest of hot topics. EVERY conversation and panel discussion, for three consecutive says, eventually turned to social media. No matter the subject on the official agenda, these executives and marketers couldn’t help but discuss this aspect of Internet marketing and communication.
Naturally, lesson #1 bodes well for Internet marketing and search engine marketing. It’s impossible not to measure this marketing channel and it’s easy to evaluate the real-world business impact. Fortunately, if the impact of your Internet marketing campaigns isn’t what you hoped for, you can make changes on the fly - something that isn’t always possible in traditional media.
Lesson #2, meanwhile, raises questions for me. Primarily, if social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, etc.) cost money, would marketers be as excited by it? If companies had to pay to tweet, would so many be participating? We’ll have to revisit this one later...
During a presentation about “outrageous” advertising by author and marketer Bill Glazer, I was reminded that most principles of successful advertising are also fundamentals of a good Internet marketing campaign. According to Glazer, your marketing must:
a) cut through the clutter;
b) always have an offer or call-to-action; and...
c) grab someone’s attention in a matter of seconds.
Glazer pointed out that the same holds true for direct marketing as well as display advertising or out-of-home advertising. When designing a web site, landing page or Internet marketing campaign, each of these must be true as well. Even though our society moves faster and faster, and increasingly online, it seems that many fundamentals of communication haven’t changed.
Forum attendees also had a great opportunity to receive and dissect the results of the 2010 National Sports Forum Corporate & Industry Survey, which was conducted and presented by GMR Marketing and the Ohio University Center for Sports Administration. I’m still reviewing my copy of the report and I’ll share my thoughts in this space, next time. Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading,
- Jeremy Davidson
To understand these trends, I was fortunate to attend the National Sports Forum, which held its 15th annual gathering in Baltimore last week. Hundreds of sports industry colleagues gathered to discuss these topics and gain insights for the coming year.
Naturally, I tried to absorb all of it in the context of Internet marketing. From my perspective, the quick take-away lessons were:
1. Sponsors and advertisers demand real business results from any marketing program. Actual, measureable results - sales, for example - are the new signs of success in marketing.
2. Social media is the hottest of hot topics. EVERY conversation and panel discussion, for three consecutive says, eventually turned to social media. No matter the subject on the official agenda, these executives and marketers couldn’t help but discuss this aspect of Internet marketing and communication.
Naturally, lesson #1 bodes well for Internet marketing and search engine marketing. It’s impossible not to measure this marketing channel and it’s easy to evaluate the real-world business impact. Fortunately, if the impact of your Internet marketing campaigns isn’t what you hoped for, you can make changes on the fly - something that isn’t always possible in traditional media.
Lesson #2, meanwhile, raises questions for me. Primarily, if social media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, etc.) cost money, would marketers be as excited by it? If companies had to pay to tweet, would so many be participating? We’ll have to revisit this one later...
During a presentation about “outrageous” advertising by author and marketer Bill Glazer, I was reminded that most principles of successful advertising are also fundamentals of a good Internet marketing campaign. According to Glazer, your marketing must:
a) cut through the clutter;
b) always have an offer or call-to-action; and...
c) grab someone’s attention in a matter of seconds.
Glazer pointed out that the same holds true for direct marketing as well as display advertising or out-of-home advertising. When designing a web site, landing page or Internet marketing campaign, each of these must be true as well. Even though our society moves faster and faster, and increasingly online, it seems that many fundamentals of communication haven’t changed.
Forum attendees also had a great opportunity to receive and dissect the results of the 2010 National Sports Forum Corporate & Industry Survey, which was conducted and presented by GMR Marketing and the Ohio University Center for Sports Administration. I’m still reviewing my copy of the report and I’ll share my thoughts in this space, next time. Stay tuned!
Thanks for reading,
- Jeremy Davidson